THAT the Governor of the Central Bank Chrystalla Georghadji has
been the target of a witch-hunt by the political parties there is little
doubt. The parties have been out to get her for months, an effort that
reached its peak with the allegations by the former executive director
of the Central Bank Stelios Kiliaris at the legislature last March. This
effort backfired as Kiliaris' allegations led to the investigation
of the deputy attorney-general Rikkos Erotokritou with the known
results.

At this time parties were also misleadingly claiming that
Georghadji had a list of names of deputies that had NPLs at the Bank of
Cyprus with the intention of blackmailing them. It was a disgraceful
claim, which supported the theory of a witch-hunt. The list had been
prepared by the Bank of Cyprus and the governor requested a copy after
she had read of its existence in a newspaper, but any talk of
'blackmail' was pure fantasy. Once the list had been leaked to
the press the parties all united in calling for her resignation.

Last month, we had the absurd raid of the Central Bank offices by
the police who confiscated the hard-drives of the computers of the
governor and three of her associates. Court orders for the confiscation
were secured by the police after a deputy, not renowned for his good
sense, reported Georghadji to the police alleging she had leaked the
list and thus violated the law on personal data. Attorney-general Costas
Clerides gave the go-ahead for the confiscation of the hard-drives,
because of the political witch-hunt that President Anastasiades was also
participating in.

He had asked Georghadji to submit her resignation. This
investigation has been frozen on orders of the AG after a letter,
threatening legal action, was sent by the president of the European
Central Bank, Mario Draghi, to Anastasiades.

On Tuesday the draft of the findings of the investigation
undertaken by the House ethics committee was ready. There was unanimity
among the parties about the conflict of interest -- the law office of
her estranged husband was representing Andreas Vgenopoulos -- and they
all agreed that she should not have accepted her appointment as governor
because of this. On the same day it was confirmed that Anastasiades had
written to the attorney-general asking him to file an application at the
Supreme Court for the termination of Georghadji's services. This,
despite the advice of Clerides, who felt no offence, justifying the
termination of the governor's services, had been committed.

It is now up to the Supreme Court to rule on the matter, which
could land Cyprus in trouble with the ECB and cause further
embarrassment to the president, who had unwisely joined the
parties' witch-hunt.

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in trouble with ECB appeared first on Cyprus Mail.